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Depending on where you're currently located (a school in a depressed area won't have connections to good employers). what you're majoring in, the cost of the degree, and where you want to relocate, a degree may or may not be worth it. Whether a degree is worth it or not is on a completely case-by-case basis. It's not uniformly worth it and most of the "lifetime earnings" data that is available doesn't count in the economic deterioration of the last few years, nor the rapid rise in education costs and debt loads. Where I'm at, one would be better working their way up at a fast food or grocery chain than going to college, just to work in low level customer services jobs after college, because that is almost all the jobs that are here.
The military background is especially helpful for jobs in government, security clearance requirements, or at government contractors. Unless the military skills directly transfer to the civilian job, it's just "unrelated experience."
Unless your ROI on the master's degree is showing some pretty concrete projections to be positive, why go into debt for it?
This isn't about crying and moaning - it's that education, even when getting a marketable degree, going to an inexpensive school, and keeping debt low, turns out to be a poor investment with a negative ROI for years after acquiring the degree. That's the real crisis we haven't seen before.
Very nice assessment. Your on to something, I am here in Princeton, NJ with plenty of options, to this end, I work with young kids today who are very smart and taking advantage of every opportunity afforded to them, for instance, Marriott international WILL PAY for their MBA after they sign on of course. It may or may not help them later in life because of work ethics, but it can't hurt being more educated without the added costs. Great point.>> you're right, we haven't seen this before.
Depending on where you're currently located (a school in a depressed area won't have connections to good employers). what you're majoring in, the cost of the degree, and where you want to relocate, a degree may or may not be worth it. Whether a degree is worth it or not is on a completely case-by-case basis. It's not uniformly worth it and most of the "lifetime earnings" data that is available doesn't count in the economic deterioration of the last few years, nor the rapid rise in education costs and debt loads. Where I'm at, one would be better working their way up at a fast food or grocery chain than going to college, just to work in low level customer services jobs after college, because that is almost all the jobs that are here.
The military background is especially helpful for jobs in government, security clearance requirements, or at government contractors. Unless the military skills directly transfer to the civilian job, it's just "unrelated experience."
Unless your ROI on the master's degree is showing some pretty concrete projections to be positive, why go into debt for it?
This isn't about crying and moaning - it's that education, even when getting a marketable degree, going to an inexpensive school, and keeping debt low, turns out to be a poor investment with a negative ROI for years after acquiring the degree. That's the real crisis we haven't seen before.
I agree that military experience can be both a benefit and well, just neutral. However, I strongly disagree about the master's degree. There are not a lot of "full-ride" scholarships out there for master's degrees, except in engineering and some sciences. Even in health care, one must generally borrow money.
Very nice assessment. Your on to something, I am here in Princeton, NJ with plenty of options, to this end, I work with young kids today who are very smart and taking advantage of every opportunity afforded to them, for instance, Marriott international WILL PAY for their MBA after they sign on of course. It may or may not help them later in life because of work ethics, but it can't hurt being more educated without the added costs. Great point.>> you're right, we haven't seen this before.
If the employer will pay for it, you might as well get it, but many employers are now offering no benefits of any kind. I've never seen an employer pay for an entire education and I've worked at some large companies in the past that have decent benefits. The most I've seen is $5,250 annually. Also, many employers require the degree to be directly relevant to the job you were hired in for, and if that job is not categorized as "career-track" or if an education is not required to the job, you don't get the benefit.
Employers may be quite a bit more generous in the Northeast than the South.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Katiana
I agree that military experience can be both a benefit and well, just neutral. However, I strongly disagree about the master's degree. There are not a lot of "full-ride" scholarships out there for master's degrees, except in engineering and some sciences. Even in health care, one must generally borrow money.
Whether it's a full ride or not is relevant, but only to the extent that the cost to the individual is lessened. If I pay nothing for a degree, then there is no reason for me to not go and every reason for me to go, as I have nothing on the line and can only benefit. Scholarships and other forms of assistance alter only one side of the equation.
If I have to go into debt for the degree, let's say $50,000, then the salary increases I get for having the degree over my career have to be at least a dollar more than the sum of the $50,000 in debt, the interest on the debt, and the opportunity cost of lost wages (if there are any) and whatever dollar value I assign my time (up to the individual, but time has worth - even if it's not monetary) to be worth it. If I go into $50,000 of debt for a master's, but come out making the same salary or a small gain, it likely isn't worth it.
People who graduated with marginal degrees with no internships and no discernible skills have probably always had it tough. I don't think any reasonable person is saying that "underwater basket weaving with an English minor" and no internships, a poor GPA, etc, had a cakewalk in the past.
However, when graduates of programs with tangible skills, like accounting, finance, and computer science with internships, skills with industry standard software, positive references, some work history, etc, end up as permanent baristas and retail workers, this indicates a structural labor market problem. People who should be succeeding, or at least getting an opportunity, aren't. Over time, a once skilled graduate ending up underemployed or unemployed will have his or her skills atrophy. This loss of skills probably won't be regained, and this loss of productivity and output (after all, an accountant is more financially active than a bagging clerk) that otherwise would have been there had things gone normally comes out as deadweight loss and "lowers the ceiling" of economic output.
Personally, this forum is one of the ways I keep my own mind active and keep skills from decaying. If I relied just on what I have to do in my day to day life, my brain would be mush, I'd have no writing skills left, and everything I learned would have long since been forgotten. What I have to do in my day to day life is far, far less challenging than what I'm capable of or should be doing. The difference in output between what I'm doing and what I am capable of doing or otherwise would be doing is the deadweight loss.
Rural America has been emptying out at an increasing rate since about 1900 when you started to get large scale migration of rural people into cities. In the South, this migration meant that rural Southerners, black and white, not only left the rural areas for cities, but for cities in the North, Midwest, and Far West. The 1920 census was the first where half of all Americans lived in urban places. In 2010, about 80% of Americans lived in urban places. So, basically, people have been moving to where jobs are for at least a century.
Yep. I don't know why this is new information for some people.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Emigrations
Where I'm at, one would be better working their way up at a fast food or grocery chain than going to college, just to work in low level customer services jobs after college, because that is almost all the jobs that are here.
That's what my SIL did. She doesn't have a degree, but has been working in a grocery store for 10-12 years and she just got promoted to head of the produce department, which is a lot of responsibility. Before that she was in a charge of smaller department.
Quote:
Unless your ROI on the master's degree is showing some pretty concrete projections to be positive, why go into debt for it?
I don't know why anyone pays for a Master's degree. Either work as an RA or TA receive a stipend with tuition covered, or have a company pay for it.
Quote:
This isn't about crying and moaning - it's that education, even when getting a marketable degree, going to an inexpensive school, and keeping debt low, turns out to be a poor investment with a negative ROI for years after acquiring the degree. That's the real crisis we haven't seen before.
I agree. There are people in college who don't belong there and those who end up with extraordinary debt they cannot pay off. It's an unsustainable situation. Either these kids lack guidance, don't listen to guidance offered, or it's just the system itself (where anyone can get a college loan and not discharge it in bankruptcy). Also, ROI is about the individual and what the individual can do with his/her tools, not the education in and of itself. That's a point you don't seem to grasp.
If the employer will pay for it, you might as well get it, but many employers are now offering no benefits of any kind. I've never seen an employer pay for an entire education and I've worked at some large companies in the past that have decent benefits. The most I've seen is $5,250 annually. Also, many employers require the degree to be directly relevant to the job you were hired in for, and if that job is not categorized as "career-track" or if an education is not required to the job, you don't get the benefit.
Employers may be quite a bit more generous in the Northeast than the South.
Whether it's a full ride or not is relevant, but only to the extent that the cost to the individual is lessened. If I pay nothing for a degree, then there is no reason for me to not go and every reason for me to go, as I have nothing on the line and can only benefit. Scholarships and other forms of assistance alter only one side of the equation.
If I have to go into debt for the degree, let's say $50,000, then the salary increases I get for having the degree over my career have to be at least a dollar more than the sum of the $50,000 in debt, the interest on the debt, and the opportunity cost of lost wages (if there are any) and whatever dollar value I assign my time (up to the individual, but time has worth - even if it's not monetary) to be worth it. If I go into $50,000 of debt for a master's, but come out making the same salary or a small gain, it likely isn't worth it.
People who graduated with marginal degrees with no internships and no discernible skills have probably always had it tough. I don't think any reasonable person is saying that "underwater basket weaving with an English minor" and no internships, a poor GPA, etc, had a cakewalk in the past.
However, when graduates of programs with tangible skills, like accounting, finance, and computer science with internships, skills with industry standard software, positive references, some work history, etc, end up as permanent baristas and retail workers, this indicates a structural labor market problem. People who should be succeeding, or at least getting an opportunity, aren't. Over time, a once skilled graduate ending up underemployed or unemployed will have his or her skills atrophy. This loss of skills probably won't be regained, and this loss of productivity and output (after all, an accountant is more financially active than a bagging clerk) that otherwise would have been there had things gone normally comes out as deadweight loss and "lowers the ceiling" of economic output.
Personally, this forum is one of the ways I keep my own mind active and keep skills from decaying. If I relied just on what I have to do in my day to day life, my brain would be mush, I'd have no writing skills left, and everything I learned would have long since been forgotten. What I have to do in my day to day life is far, far less challenging than what I'm capable of or should be doing. The difference in output between what I'm doing and what I am capable of doing or otherwise would be doing is the deadweight loss.
Let me say it differently: THERE ARE FEW SCHOLARSHIPS FOR GRAD SCHOOL THAT PAY MUCH MONEY, excluding some engineering and science degrees. Even then, the students have to work, either as TAs or RAs. Oh, there are a few, small dollar scholarships that might pay for books or something, but considering one has to support oneself in grad school, as parents are usually done with doing so, the costs can add up to $30K a year or so. Some of my daughter's friends were married, and that helped with the R&B, but she was not and had to pay full rent, groceries and the other costs of running a home. You can do a detailed financial analysis if you want, including opportunity costs, but the reality is the degree usually results in higher earnings.
@Braunwyn-There are few employers who are going to pay for you to do a three year physical therapy doctorate, for example, or a Pharm D degree. Some pharmacy students works as techs, and some of those employers might offer something, but nothing like full tuition.
Location: RI, MA, VT, WI, IL, CA, IN (that one sucked), KY
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Emigrations
Your experience is based on your location in Boston, a metro that is a hotbed of high-end jobs in today's knowledge economy. While such jobs may be available in abundance in Boston, that's not the case in many parts of the country.
My peers in their 20s who have a degree are pretty much in two classes - 1) Those who have relocated to major metros, regardless of major or field, seem to be doing decent to quite well. There were always a few people I grew up with in rural TN who wanted to go to NYC, LA, etc, and those people went and have done well. Life has taken some of the others to major cities. 2) Those who remained here or other small towns and aren't in education or patient-facing health care are doing poorly, by and large. The jobs where degrees are required or beneficial generally don't exist in small metros, and if they do, often pay less adjusted for COL than their metro counterparts.
Well sure, you have to go where jobs are. I don't understand the mentality of people that don't do this. Do they want to fail? Are they afraid of succeeding?
Wow, some smart cookies here, I've hunted bad guys my entire life and can say with no doubt, my career choice at the time was high speed and never ending, I never thought for one second that after twenty five years business would NOT still be booming the way it is, but it's game for younger people , thank god, I am out of the game and around normal people again, around good and decent carrying people and not around the evil any longer. But I can still help you with your lost key card if you're ever in Princeton, New Jersey. Stay Blessed People..
@Braunwyn-There are few employers who are going to pay for you to do a three year physical therapy doctorate, for example, or a Pharm D degree. Some pharmacy students works as techs, and some of those employers might offer something, but nothing like full tuition.
I think there's a difference between FT students who work PT and FT workers who go to school PT. The idea of working FT and going to grad school FT isn't reasonable imo, regardless of who pays for it. I wouldn't expect an employer to fund it aside from special cases. What I've seen is around 10k/yr for bigger companies and less for smaller co's. My co does fully fund a PhD, but as with any of the grad classes there must be a direct benefit to the company, which is completely reasonable imo. Would that be the case for tech's getting their PharmD's? I've heard of the likes of Walgreen's funding pharmd's in the past so as to secure a pharmacist worker. I don't know how common that is these days.
Let me say it differently: THERE ARE FEW SCHOLARSHIPS FOR GRAD SCHOOL THAT PAY MUCH MONEY, excluding some engineering and science degrees. Even then, the students have to work, either as TAs or RAs. Oh, there are a few, small dollar scholarships that might pay for books or something, but considering one has to support oneself in grad school, as parents are usually done with doing so, the costs can add up to $30K a year or so. Some of my daughter's friends were married, and that helped with the R&B, but she was not and had to pay full rent, groceries and the other costs of running a home. You can do a detailed financial analysis if you want, including opportunity costs, but the reality is the degree usually results in higher earnings.
@Braunwyn-There are few employers who are going to pay for you to do a three year physical therapy doctorate, for example, or a Pharm D degree. Some pharmacy students works as techs, and some of those employers might offer something, but nothing like full tuition.
Assuming you're in a traditional full time program and are not working...
You still have to pay for a vehicle, vehicle insurance, gas, vehicle maintenance. You still have to pay for a residence, food, clothing, and medical expenses. You still have to pay for whatever a regular person will, but on top of that, you cannot work (or work very much) due to daytime classes. If a program costs $40k and you spend two years getting the master's, and have to pay another $25k/year in living expenses (and that's living very cheaply), you're up to $90k in debt. This is just napkin math without me taking into account in scholarships, TAs, interest, or whatever other factors may come into play.
The long and short of it is that a traditional master's program can quickly balloon into a debt load far and above the sticker price and a much higher amount than most would have anticipated.
If the person had not gone to school, not only would they not be out the sticker price of the education itself, the living expenses would have been paid for with current wages, and not rolled into debt on the expectation of higher future wages.
I don't see the benefit of a master's (or even a four year degree in many cases) unless one or more of the following conditions are met.
1) You are changing fields and the master's is quicker and cheaper to obtain than a second bachelor's.
2) The degree is paid to a high extent by an employer, scholarships, or another private source that you are not obligated to repay. If someone else is paying, why not?
3) The master's is required for moving into a higher level position with your current employer and you have a near guarantee this will happen.
4) You can "pay as you go," without significant impacting to personal savings, retirement contributions, etc (unlikely)
5) Your current pay and career trajectory are so poor that the current path is unsustainable. You are retraining out of desperation (most likely). If you're making $25k, paying $50k for a master's, and come out making $50k, then in two years the program has paid for itself, and afterward the ROI is positive. Somebody making $100k before enrolling in a master's probably has less to gain than someone making $25k.
I don't see the benefit of a master's (or even a four year degree in many cases) unless one or more of the following conditions are met.
1) You are changing fields and the master's is quicker and cheaper to obtain than a second bachelor's.
2) The degree is paid to a high extent by an employer, scholarships, or another private source that you are not obligated to repay. If someone else is paying, why not?
3) The master's is required for moving into a higher level position with your current employer and you have a near guarantee this will happen.
4) You can "pay as you go," without significant impacting to personal savings, retirement contributions, etc (unlikely)
5) Your current pay and career trajectory are so poor that the current path is unsustainable. You are retraining out of desperation (most likely). If you're making $25k, paying $50k for a master's, and come out making $50k, then in two years the program has paid for itself, and afterward the ROI is positive. Somebody making $100k before enrolling in a master's probably has less to gain than someone making $25k.
This makes sense to me and looks like a sensible approach. I don't think anyone here is saying to get an education willy nilly. People should certainly think about what they're doing and review various paths before they start taking out massive loans.
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